Being rather experienced travellers, we took the day of traveling with ease, despite it being a really long day. We left Puivert around 11:30am for Toulouse airport, landed in Cairo around 1:30am and by the time we got to Giza it was past 3:30am. Not that it mattered much to us, we were high on adrenaline and excitement, in fact, once I was finally in bed, sleep completely escaped me.
It’s an extraordinary thing to wake up (or get up in my case) and go onto the terrace for breakfast with the Pyramids and Tefnut (Sphinx) as your backdrop. The whole setting is quite surreal and almost looks like a movie set from the golden days before green screen. You half expect a small door to open and a sparky to step out with coils of cables on his shoulder.
The smell gives it away though, breaking through the illusion of fakeness and crashing you back to reality. It’s not a bad smell but a distinctive one, a blend of sand with a subtle undertone of farm and something particular that you find in lots of the ancient sites. It’s a very distinct, musty smell that I can’t quite describe but I intend to get to the bottom of it during this trip. Dendera especially smells of strong cheese or moldy mushroom, particularly in the Hathor chapel (a long corridor you have to climb up stairs and crawl through a short tunnel to get to).
“First impressions?” Vovo asked Grandpa and Eli, with a huge smile on her eager face. We both want the boys to love Egypt as much as we do. Although, Eli has made it clear, and continues to make it clear, that nothing trumps Tortola.
“It smells like earth and cigarettes,” exclaimed Eli.
“Yeah, people smoke everywhere here, it’s not like in the UK where you have smoke free places,” I replied.
“The men are always smoking,” pipped in Vovo, looking around at all the people coming and going in front of the airport.
“Maybe the women do too, we just haven’t seen,” I reply, always wanting to balance out generalised statements. Is that where Eli gets it from?
“Maybe I should take up smoking,” added Grandpa thoughtfully, “to prove my manhood.”
How wonderful it is to be back here. It feels so familiar, like home. Ok, this is my third visit in the space of a year but it has felt familiar since day one and despite it being a very different environment to what I’m used to, it still very much feels like home. How is that possible?
We were staying at The Gate Hotel, right at the entrance of the Pyramid complex and just a minute walk away from The Big House. The hotel is a family run business and has been undergoing recent development. It is quite sweet, nicely done, with clean, simple décor and a wonderful terrace view of the whole Pyramid site. The workers are all extremely friendly and laid back, making the whole atmosphere very informal and homely. Out of all the places I have stayed in Egypt, this place has the best WIFI, which is a considerable perk, especially for Eli.
We decided to stay in Giza when we arrived for two reasons, one because it is closer to the Siwa road and we didn’t want to navigate Cairo traffic in the morning when we set off, adding to our already marathon journey, and two we wanted to be able to see Hakim, Corina and baby Ruby, if possible. We hoped to either see them at the Big House or get a car over to where they live if it was better for Ruby. Ruby is coming up to 3 months old now and we couldn’t wait to meet her.
What’s the plan? I said in a message to Hakim after breakfast.
Meet me at the shop at 1:30, he replied.
At the designated time we marched across the road towards the Awyan family shop, which is under their family home, or the Big House. El’beit kabir. The family are stonemasons, replicating ancient statues and jewellery designs from the time of the pharaohs and selling their work in their shop. They are also musicians, playing the oud and traditional drums, which they also decorate and sell in the shop. They are also researchers and mystics, healers and philosophers, whose practices are rooted in the ancient wisdom and ways of Khemet. A visit with them is always interesting.
I stepped into the shop and Shahira (Hakim’s aunt) was there. She looked up and for a brief moment there was a blank expression in her face and then a split second later the light of recognition hit her eyes and she smiled warmly.
“Aaaah, hello!” she said opening her arms to me for a good long hug.
I dreamt of Shahira weeks ago. I don’t remember the details of the dream but I remember our bond and closeness. In the dream we had some sort of mother-daughter, mentor-student relationship that was very warm and loving. Hugging her, I felt that warmth flowing between us as we squeezed each other tight.
“Welcome back!” she said as we pulled apart but still holding each other’s arms.
“It is good to be back.”
“Egypt is not done with you yet!” the twinkle in her eyes sparking brightly, “and you!” she exclaimed, seeing my mum enter the shop a bit behind me. They too hugged it out with great happiness.
We introduced my dad and Eli and settled into catching up with news and stories. Shahira is a bio touch practitioner who not only treats people but teaches how to heal with bio touch. The story of how she brought this ancient Egyptian practice back to Egypt is a story to be told, especially the way she tells it as she is a natural storyteller. I think I remember how she told it and may share it soon. Mum and I will learn from her later in our trip, so I suppose my dream was correct. We will develop a mentor/student bond, either way, I was feeling the love.
Hakim arrived not long after that, serendipitously along with a tray of delicious lemon and mint juices, which is the best thing to drink in the crazy summer heat.
“I’m so sorry not to bring Ruby but it is very hot for her still and she is not liking the car seat. We tried it once and, yanni, she screamed the entire journey. It is too much,” he explained apologetically after we all greeted each other.
“Aw, that’s a shame but I get it. Will we go to yours? Or is that too much too?” I was hopeful but the look in his eye told me it wasn’t going to happen.
“It is a little too much. She goes to bed at 5…”
“Wow, that’s early!”
“And, yeah. It will have to be another time.” He trailed off looking down at the rows of intricately carved pendants in the glass case below us.
Something was up, I could sense it. He looked tired and very pale, like he has spent too much time indoors. I wonder if that is what happens to most Egyptians during summer because it’s so hot and no one goes outside. Or it is the effect of new fatherhood? Life with a newborn baby is hard, it can turn your world upside down.
“It will get easier,” I promised, patting him on the arm.
We had a thoroughly pleasant afternoon catching up and, with Hakim’s help, sorting out important things like a WIFI box and Egyptian phone chip so we can ensure we are connected during our time here. Not only does Eli have schoolwork to do (and cough gaming) but Grandpa also has work to do and needs to have good internet access.
He left us at a restaurant down the road from our hotel so we could eat while he rushed home. We will see him again at the end of the month when we all gather to go to Luxor for a week. Hopefully, after that we will meet the formidable miss Ruby and be able to spend some time with Corina.
With our business in Cairo complete we returned to the terrace of the hotel to watch the sun set behind the mighty pyramids. The following day we hit the road to Siwa.
I can’t possibly relay every crazy, fun, wild detail of our trip, there are simply too many to include. You’ll have to come with me one day on an adventure and see where it takes us! Needless to say, the road to Siwa is long, should be uneventful but quite often can be rather eventful, especially where the road suddenly ends and you bump along a sandy track until it starts again. To be fair, they are progressing with their roadworks and now, up until Marsa Matrouh the road is practically finished, which is a marvel.
In ten years’ time the whole mediterranean coast will be unrecognisable with luxury holiday resorts littering the entire stretch from Alexandria to Marsa Matrouh. For hours we drove past development after development, each one marked by a row of colourful or sleek flags advertising the brand. Large billboards pop up along the highway from Cairo all the way to Marsa, advertising these dream resorts with photos of turquoise water and women in modest swimwear. The price of progress.
One day Siwa will become well known and accessible to the rest of the world. Plucked from the mists of a forgotten time and thrown into the throngs of a racing twenty-first century world. I wonder how it will survive the onslaught of modernity. For now, everything here is slow. No problem. We take our time. We live with nature. We live simply. How long will that last? Already it is changing. Change is inevitable though, it’s how we direct this change that is important.
We are staying in old Shali, which is the ruins of the old, fortified city of Siwa. For perhaps thousands of years, people crossing the north African coast going east to west or west to east would have to pass through this oasis. Water in the desert is precious and Siwa has hundreds of springs with amazingly pure and mineralised water.
Such constant traffic, including important trade traffic, would eventually attract attention. After suffering through various attacks from thieving brigands, the people of Siwa (who are Amazigh tribal people from North Africa, not Egyptians) decided to build their settlement with a defensive wall, which protected their thriving community for some time. About a hundred years ago however, Siwa experienced three days of torrential rain, something they have never had before, and it completely destroyed the city. The buildings look like semi-melted, worn away by the wind into an unrecognisable jumble of oddly angled protrusions. Like the aging carcass of an ancient creature slowly returning to the desert.
Recently, people have been buying up parts of the ruins and rebuilding and it is in one of these rebuilt houses that we are staying. Rebuilt in the traditional way with cob and salt walls and halved palm trunks as supports. The walls are extremely thick and the windows small, all with the purpose of maintaining an even temperature inside.
What we’ve found though, is that without a/c its unbearable. The heat right now has hit us like a tonne of bricks. Whose smart-arsed idea was it to go to the desert in summer? Ok, it’s the end of summer and autumn is supposed to be starting and temperatures are supposed to be dropping but is that happening? No, it most certainly is not. It’s as hot as ever.
After a day of traveling and hardly drinking because I didn’t want to be stopping every half an hour to pee, like last time, then a bad night, because I decided it would be a great idea (it wasn’t) to sleep on the roof under the stars and try to catch a breeze rather than in Eli’s room with a/c, I woke up on Thursday, our first proper day here to find myself shaking and practically walking sideways. This would not do. I could not possibly have heatstroke.
I tried to be useful but every time I got up, I felt so bloody awful that I had to lie down immediately. The house was a furnace after having been shut up all summer and we all lay about in the shade where we could catch the tiny breeze that occasionally came wafting over, as we slowly cooked.
Later I did manage to go out with the others to do some shopping for the house, simple things that we needed like binbags and washing up liquid, fruit, honey, rice etc. trying to make sense of the shops and how Siwans do things but barely managing to register anything at all as I’m tracking the sweat trailing down my body and splashing on the hot, dusty floor beneath my billowing skirt.
I couldn’t do it and had to go home. Later the others went to get food from a restaurant and Eli also had to be brought home, where he promptly vomited everywhere, then fell asleep for twelve hours. I had to have a good laugh at myself. I have been spending weeks making sure to go out in peak sun to get used to the heat and yet I was the one who got hit the hardest. Oh, the irony.
What are you trying to tell me Siwa? What do I need to do? Was I wrong to come here? Should we leave and come back later when it may be cooler? Was this a waste of our time and resources? The heat is so all-encompassing it’s even hard to think sometimes.
Slowly we’ve been acclimatizing, going out in the mornings and evenings, seeking places with trees and water, away from the clay oven that is Shali. Drinking gallons of water with salt and lemon. And making friends.
We’ve made a few already, especially with the kids who live in our neighbourhood who when they see me, they start chanting “Wanessa! Wanessa! Wanessa!” as they do a funny little dance. I reply by saying “Aywa! Aywa! Aywa!” (yes, in Arabic) and also do a silly dance. I’m thinking of introducing hopscotch to them one evening.
Yesterday, we visited the oracle temple. Grandpa Crook had some questions to put to the oracle about his path and service to life, while Vovo and I toned in a shaft to the right of the holy of holies and Eli sat in the shade reading his manga. We all have our roles and weave magic together this way.
The questions I had before about what we are doing here still swirled around my brain and I was reminded that things in Siwa work differently. The energy here is subtler, earthy, it asks of you to simply be.
“Keep with it. Stay present. Just let the land, sun and water do its work. You are being purified and prepared for what is to come. You do not need to force anything or make it happen. You aren’t missing any opportunities. You are just where you need to be. Trust the process, stay with it,” the oracle whispered in my heart.
I suppose after all this sweating my body might actually transform into something smoking hot. That would be pretty damned cool. I imagine myself like some sexy, mythical, goddess-warrior-woman, walking out of the desert with my golden hair flying behind me and my falcon on my shoulder. Forever transformed by the sandy sea. Besides me and towering over me, Eli walks with his golden mane curling down his back, the ground crackling under his feet. Then come Vovo and Grandpa, like two mystical Magis, ethereal and birdlike. They are the moon and we are the sun. The image dissolves like a mirage but the idea lingers.
Oracle? What do you think? Could be a fun experience to be smoking hot, right?! How ‘bout it?
For now, I’ll settle for managing the heat without collapsing. Baby steps.
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